The Lord Of The Flies
Sir William Gerald Golding
Sir William Gerald
Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for
Literature Winner, best known for his novel
“Lord of the Flies”. He was also awarded the Booker Prize for
literature in 1980 for his novel “Rites of Passage”, the first book of the
trilogy “To the Ends of the Earth”.
• In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Who is Golding?
• William Golding worked as a teacher in Greece and he believed even kids were not innocent creatures.
• He believed that human were born
with sin as a reference to the biblical myths.
• He is an anti-humanist.
The book
• Published in 1954, won Golding the Nobel Prize.
• The book portrays children’s descent into savagery after a plane crash;
left to themselves in a paradisiacal
country, far from modern civilization, the well-educated children regress
to a primitive state.
Symbolism and Characters
• Ralph: symbolizes leadership
• Piggy: innocence and intelligence
• Jack: he worst aspects of human nature when unrepressed or untempered by
society.
• The Conch (horn): symbolizes the power to lead
• Pig head: symbolizes first hunt and wild
nature of humankind apart from society
Influences
• LOST draws many of its initial plot devices and themes from Lord of the Flies, most notably being based on a plane crash on a deserted island, the existence of a "beast", and the emerging tensions between two leaders, one of whom happens to be named Jack. The overweight Hurley occasionally serves as the voice of reason, much like the
novel's Piggy. Initially most of the survivors
subsist on the hunting of wild pig, much like the boys in the novel. The initial similarities between the stories are openly commented on by the
show's characters, such as Sawyer.
• The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act
peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the
good of the group against the instinct to gratify one’s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one’s will. This conflict might be expressed in a number of ways: civilization vs.
savagery, order vs. chaos, reason vs. impulse, law vs.
anarchy, or the broader heading of good vs. evil.
Throughout the novel, Golding associates the instinct of civilization with good and the instinct of savagery with evil.
